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Before it became the government in 1991, the EPRDF was a rebel group battling the military junta known as the Derg. It was in power from 1974 to 1987, when Mengistu Haile Mariam established the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, which lasted until the EPRDF overthrew it. During this period, the Derg was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of opponents without trial.[1]

In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Mengistu government, the EPRDF gained support from the United States. Michael Johns, an Africa expert with the Heritage Foundation, wrote in 1991 that "there are some modestly encouraging signs that the front intends to abandon Mengistu's autocratic practices."[3] Observers have had concerns since then about the EPRDF's treatment of the opposition, particularly the validity of the 2005 and 2010 elections.

The EPRDF won 472 of the 527 seats in the House of People's Representatives in the 2000 elections. The results of the 2005 elections were not accepted by all parties. The disagreements led to a prolonged crisis and public unrest, which resulted in the death of 193 Ethiopians, including civilians and police officers. The ruling front claimed to have won 499 of the 527 seats. The opposition, which claimed widespread fraud and intimidation, declared that the two major opposition coalitions together would form a majority coalition. Though one of the major opposition parties (Coalition for Unity and Democracy) carried Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa by a landslide, the opposition did not have the strength of the EPRDF in rural Ethiopia.

The EPRDF's two main opponents in the 2005 elections were the Coalition for Unity and Democracy and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, both of which are also coalitions of multiple opposition parties. The opposition made spectacular gains in the election, which caught all observers, and the parties, off guard. Early results from the polls showed the opposition on course to sweep to power with a substantial majority. However, the National Election Board, appointed by the Prime Minister, stopped the vote tabulation process for several days. There was a break in the chain of control of ballot boxes. When the counting resumed and the ruling coalition declared it had won, the opposition cried foul and contested the results.

Today, kebele officials wield a massive amount of power over their constituents in a myriad ways, in a system where the line between state and ruling party is firmly entrenched. Kebele officials determine eligibility for food assistance, recommend referrals to secondary health care and schools, and provide access to state-distributed resources like seeds, fertilizers, and other essential agricultural inputs. Minor claims and disputes at the kebele level are adjudicated by social courts based in these Kebeles. Local prisons; and, in some places, local-level militia are used to execute the laws and political decisions of the ruling party.[5]

Revolutionary Democracy replaced Marxism–Leninism as the EPRDF's official ideology in the early 1990s, not because the front had lost their belief in communism, but rather because of the international situation (the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991).[10] The main message of Revolutionary Democracy, similar to that found in Marxist–Leninist thought, is that a vanguard party should rule because it represents the people and has "supposedly superior knowledge of the nature of social development conferred on them by the EPRDF ideology."[11] Similar to Marxism–Leninism, the EPRDF prefers to categorize society into classes, such as the peasantry, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the comprador bourgeoisie for instance, and considers its main adversary to be imperialism, that is free marketcapitalist states.[11] The Ethiopian opposition are referred to by the EPRDF as enemies, and they are called "chauvinists", "narrow nationalists" and/or "secessionists".[11]

The peasantry are considered the main class in Ethiopia since they form a majority of the population, and they are considered the pillar of Revolutionary Democracy.[12] Upon seizing power, the front was suspicious of the petite bourgeoisie class, believing that they were naturally inclined to oppose the front's policies.[13] Despite this, the front believed it could win over the petite bourgeoisie through economic incentives and successful policy.[13] Importantly, if members of the petite bourgeoisie class opposes the EPRDF, the front will "empty their 'belly and pocket'".[14] The urban proletariat are in contrast naturally inclined towards the EPRDF, and the EPRDF seeks to recruit members of these class so as to strengthen the front's organizational links with the trade unions.[14] The EPRDF asserts that the "local investor", that is, the capitalist, will naturally be hostile towards the front and its policies, and the front should therefore try to persuade this class to become neutral.[14] Religious organizations are deemed reactionary by the EPRDF.[15]

The EPRDF opposes liberal democracy, and liberalism in general.[16] Despite this, Revolutionary Democracy can be considered a mixture of communist and liberal thought.[16] The front views liberal democracy and free market capitalism as decadent, and has a "romantic attachment" to the beliefs of Vladimir Lenin, who condemned liberal democracy to be the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (literally the dictatorship of the upper class) while supporting Lenin's assertion of the need for a vanguard party which practices democratic centralism.[16] It considers liberal democracy to be "ill-fit and unsustainable", but ironically much of the front's economic policies are based on the tacit acknowledgement of the need of some liberalism in the economic field.[16]

With the majority of EPRDF's top leaders being former members of the Marxist–Leninist League of Tigray, a Hoxhaist organization led by among others Meles Zenawi, Marxist ideology still plays a prominent role in party discourse, with some even claiming that the front is hiding their ideology.[17] Theodore M. Vestal claims that the front based its ideology on Marxist–Leninist revisionism, believing it explains the regime's authoritarian nature.[18] Of the communists traits in Revolutionary Democracy most of them have been borrowed from Maoism, an ideology conceived by the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.[16]

^Lovise Aalen, "Ethnic Federalism and Self Determination for Nationalities in A Semi Authoritarian State: the Case of Ethiopia", International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 13 (2006), pp. 243-261